Flowers, Hours, and Showers

Uganda is generally a noisy place. I sat in the flower -filled hotel garden this morning and had difficulty picking up different sounds there was such an avalanche of noise. Birds squeak, chirp, squawk, sing, whistle, crow and cackle. Then there are the sounds always present in the background, brooms sweeping, pots and pans clanging, singing, talking – usually in the local language with odd words in English, TV, children playing, and the slop-slap of flip-flops. There’s a very loud church down the road too – with a slightly manic leader.

This morning we went to church in Kitazigurukwa (try pronouncing it – I’m hopeless!).  We sat in our Sunday best, were introduced to the congregation, and gave our greetings from home – but didn’t have a clue what was going on most of the time.  Moses explained the odd bits. This included a lady asking for donations to buy a smaller lectern because the existing one was too tall (I think the term is ‘go figure’).  After an hour, I asked if I could go with the children when they went out.

What do you think of this, Hope Kids team? There were 61 children aged from 2-11 years, one Sunday school teacher, no physical room, no teaching resources – actually no resources at all. Penelop came out with me to translate and help.  The teacher divided the children into 3 groups according to school class (nursery then P1-P6), then went from group to group while the other children sat under the shade of a tree, waiting patiently for their turn.  We helped by going to one of the other groups. They sang to me, I sang to them, we tried to sing together – with mixed success. There is no playing. Sunday School is for praying and learning the Bible. Bob stayed in the main meeting with Tom, I think they both dozed during the 90minute sermon they didn’t understand.

The children were amazing. We had a good time with them – lots of laughing, and only one instance of disruptive behaviour during the 1 ½ hours. I had huge admiration for the teacher – wow! We went back to the main meeting, and had the fun of the offering auction, where vegetable gifts are sold to the highest bidder.  After that we had communion, then a promotional talk about health insurance. 2½ hours after we arrived, Moses said ‘it is finished’. I wouldn’t have known!

This afternoon we had some time to ourselves, then walked to Moses’s house and played with his children and their friends. Moses and his wife were in town making last minute preparations for the new school term tomorrow.

Last instalment of the shower saga: We’ve now both been almost burnt by scalding hot showers. We prefer the cold ones. It’s an interesting moment when you turn on the tap and wait to jump out of the way. The header tank has a leak which nicely filled Tom’s washbag but he’s made a clever water-catcher out of the bottom of a water bottle. We haven’t worked out where the leak on the floor is coming from.

However, the best bit about the bathroom is our resident guest (Rachel if you’re reading this don’t read on). We have a very pretty gecko who lives on our ceiling. The worst thing about the bathroom is gecko poo.  At first we thought we had a rat…. But our friend comes in and does his business which falls to the floor, or a bottle of shampoo….  I’m so glad I brought a torch!

Tomorrow the work starts but we have had a lovely day’s holiday. 

We are very privileged to be able to come to this beautiful country with its wonderful welcoming people and abundance of wildlife (tiger moths, blue stripy lizards, gorgeous birds today).  We don’t underestimate how lucky we are, and know that now it’s time to support and encourage our friends in their work to help the most vulnerable children in this society.